


Amanda's Advice for Newlyweds

by WeirdLittleStories



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Being married to an alien is educational, Everyone's an alien, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 06:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3437486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeirdLittleStories/pseuds/WeirdLittleStories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda Grayson goes to Earth to attend a friend's wedding and is asked for the secret of her own happy marriage.  Her friend is surprised to hear that Amanda thinks her marriage to Sarek is exceptionally happy BECAUSE she married an alien.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amanda's Advice for Newlyweds

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very simple little story, one of my "examine one tiny detail" ficlets. I'm sorry it's not better, but squeezing all the juice out of one detail at a time seems to be the way my mind works. ;-)

* * *

 

Amanda Grayson was visiting Earth for the first time in nearly a year.  Following Sarek all over the galaxy while he served Vulcan as an ambassador meant that she didn't get to see her human friends nearly as often as she'd like.  Her dear friend Katie was getting married that weekend, though, and she'd been asked to be Matron of Honor.  This was one Earth commitment she wasn't going to miss; Sarek would just have to do without her for a week.    
  
The Vulcan-crewed shuttle she'd taken from Vulcan to Earth was, of course, on time, and she had plenty of time to meet her friend for lunch before they both went off to the wedding rehearsal.  Katie was waiting in front of the restaurant when she got there, and the two women hugged each other gleefully.  Amanda pulled back to look at her friend.  "Let me look at you.  You look fabulous; being engaged to Mike really agrees with you."  
  
Katie smiled.  "I've never felt like this about anyone before."  
  
"Well, let's go inside and get our lunch, and you can tell me all about him."  
  
The two women entered the restaurant, were seated, and quickly ordered.  "Mexican food!"  Amanda said.  "It's been more than a year since I've had Mexican food, and I've missed it.  I also need to eat at least one pizza before I go back to Vulcan."  
  
Katie looked troubled.  "You've given up so much to live with Sarek."  
  
Amanda smiled.  "That's true, but I've gained so much, too.  There's a ... tranquility to living on Vulcan that nothing on Earth can match.  I think maybe Vulcan serenity goes so deep that it can't help but rub off on me.  And mind melds ... Katie, I can't begin to tell you the joy of knowing a spouse and being known by him at such a deep level."  
  
Katie looked at her friend.  "I've been thinking about you a lot, now that I'm getting married.  You seem to be the happiest of all of my married friends, and yet you married an alien!  Now that I'm getting married, myself, I have to know — what's your secret?"  
  
Amanda looked at the other woman thoughtfully.  "I don't think my marriage to Sarek is happy _in spite of_   his being an alien; I think we're happy _because of_   that."  
  
Katie looked questioningly at her friend.  "How so?"  
  
Amanda grimaced.  "When I listen to friends who've married human men, I hear several things, and the first is probably a litany of disappointment.  He doesn't share his feelings, he seems to live entirely on the surface, he doesn't even _notice_ the things that the women think matter, much less care about them."  
  
Katie nodded.  "I've certainly heard things like that from my married friends."  
  
Amanda continued, "I also hear them say — over and over again — that their husbands seem like members of a different species.  Their husbands take off their shoes and put them on the kitchen counter, and what kind of alien species would think it's okay to put dirty shoes on a place where food is prepared?  Their husbands don't send greeting cards and don't seem to understand why anyone would care about such things.  Their husbands leave piles of clothes in the middle of the floor, walk on them, then pick them up unconcernedly and _wear_ them the next day."  
  
Katie laughed.  "I think I'm getting an inkling!"  
  
Amanda smiled.  "You hear it, don't you?  The human women I know who've married human men _feel_ as if they've married aliens.  They're shocked, disbelieving, and disappointed to find that their husbands are so different from themselves.  They weren't prepared for that, and they don't have much patience with it; they behave as if their husbands should have the same beliefs, attitudes, and customs that they themselves have."  
  
"But you, on the other hand, _knew_ you were marrying an alien."  
  
Amanda nodded.  "Sarek and I knew and expected that our spouse would have different beliefs, attitudes, and customs.  After we got engaged, we spent a long time working out how we would live together and what each of us could expect from the other, trying to make our implicit assumptions about marriage EXplicit."    
  
Amanda took a sip of her water and continued.  "I knew I had no idea what the role or duties of a Vulcan wife are or what Sarek would expect from a wife, and he knew that he understood very little of what the assumptions of a human wife are about what she can expect from her husband."  She leaned forward and put a hand on Katie's arm.  "We worked all of it out explicitly, and I encourage you and Mike to do that, too.  Yes, you're both human, but that doesn't mean that each of you will have the same assumptions about what marriage means."    
  
Katie smiled.  "We've both had such stars in our eyes about being in love that we've just assumed that everything would be fine, but I hear that's a dangerous assumption."  
  
Amanda nodded.  "It is.  It's those unexamined assumptions that come back to bite you, so examine them; examine all of them."  
  
Katie nodded.  "It makes sense, now that you say it.  And I gather, from what you were saying before, that one of your assumptions was expecting each other to be different."  
  
Amanda smiled.  "We've both bent over backwards to accommodate each other's differences, because of course an enlightened person would never dream of holding a member of one Federation species to the standards of a different Federation species; that would be xenophobic and oppressive."  
  
Katie considered this.  "So you expected a Vulcan man to be different from you in a way that human women don't expect human men to be.  So to have as happy a marriage as you have ..."  
  
"Just know that every other person in the universe is an alien in some ways, and give their customs the same respect, latitude, and courtesy that you'd give them if they were a member of another species ... and demand the same consideration for yourself."  
  
Katie smiled.  "It sounds so simple when you say it."  
  
Amanda shook her head.  "It IS simple, but never mistake simple for easy.  Being married to Sarek has never been easy, but it _has_ been worth it, and that's what matters, after all."  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

>  **1.** Thanks for reading!
> 
> **2.** I still don't own Star Trek, damnitall. :-)
> 
> **3.** I have a chronic illness that leaves me non-functional more days than not. I will try to respond to any comments I receive; unfortunately, my good intentions are frequently thwarted by my poor health. (I do read them all with great attention, even when my health doesn't permit me to reply.)
> 
> **4.** I've made a Starfleet career for the computer game _The Sims 3._ You can get it (or just read about it) at [ModTheSims](http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=580458). As always at ModTheSims – and as always with my game mods – the career is completely free, though it does require both _The Sims 3_ and the _Into the Future_ expansion pack to play it. (Please note that this is for _The Sims 3,_ NOT for _The Sims 4.)_


End file.
